


where the end begins

by sapphictomaz



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Episode: s07eo5 Welcome to Bardo, M/M, murphy doesnt know where he fits in. bellamy fixes things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphictomaz/pseuds/sapphictomaz
Summary: Murphy has never wanted to be king. Bellamy returns to Sanctum just long enough to show him that he doesn't have to be.Spoilers for up to 7x05.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	where the end begins

**Author's Note:**

> **spoilers** in this fic for up to 7x05!!! at the point of writing this, 7x06 hasn't aired. 
> 
> also i'm going to be real. i have no idea if bellamy could even wind up back in sanctum after 7x05 i am...confused about the plot of this season. so, let's pretend he can, for the sake of this character study.

Murphy’s at the bar. 

This in itself isn’t an uncommon sight, and for that, he knows there’s no one to blame but himself. His fingers curl around an empty glass. He taps it once or twice on the counter, his distorted reflection meeting his gaze as he stares into it. It’s not good that he’s here. He shouldn’t be here. 

Emori and Raven are with Jackson, being treated for inner and outer wounds he did nothing to prevent. Hatch, one of the prisoners, was killed gruesomely right in front of him from an immense amount of radiation, that Murphy only survived himself because of the nightblood he got from betraying his friends. At the time, he hadn’t thought he betrayed anybody. At the time, he was so sure that if they had all gone with his plan, then everyone would have come out alive. Yet, Abby ended up dead despite his best efforts, so he must have done something wrong down the line. 

He’s done a lot of things wrong, down the line. 

“Would you like some more, Daniel Prime?”

The woman behind the bar speaks, then, shattering Murphy out of his self-deprecating thoughts. She’s standing casually, smiling, but her use of  _ Prime _ after his so-called name and the knowing look she’s giving him reveals her status as being one of the remaining believers. 

He can’t help it. No one is there to reel him back in, so he smirks, the alcohol getting to his mind more than he’d like to admit. “So,” he says, “you’d do anything for me, huh?”

“Of course!”

Her adamency surprises him more than he thought it would. Of course, he’s not going to tell her to do anything at all, but the implications of what she’s so heartily agreed to scare him. “Why?” he asks. 

She tilts her head to the side, obviously confused by the question. “Because,” she says, very slowly, “you’re one of the last Primes.”

The Primes have killed people. The Primes are, probably, single-handedly responsible for all the suffering this woman has ever faced in her entire life, yet, here she is, ready to fall to her hands in knees in devotion to a god that has never wanted anything to do with her. Murphy supposes once you’ve seen a supposed deity drink at a bar day after day and still find enough faith to worship them, murder isn’t so hard to forgive. 

His mother taught him that a very, very long time ago - yet here he is, alone, at a bar. 

The image of her body surrounded by empty bottles slides into his mind and he drops the glass. It falls onto its side, quickly rolling off the counter and  _ crashing _ into a thousand pieces behind the bar. Throughout it all, the woman hadn’t moved, not even when catching it would have been easy for her. She’d been too caught up in a conversation with a false god to care. 

Murphy knows he should apologize. He should make a show of it, and thank her for her faith, and then he should march out those doors and go check on Emori, on Raven, and make sure that radiation wasn’t about to kill them all for the sixth time this week. Yet, all he does is draw his eyes up from where the glass rolled across the bar to stare the woman in the eye. “How about now?” he says. “Would you still do anything for me?”

She doesn’t flinch - doesn’t even look regretful, not for a second. “Of course.”

“Then, yeah,” he sighs, “another, please.”

She grabs another glass, pours him a shot of alcohol, and then dutifully begins sweeping up the pieces of one he’d just broken. Throughout it all, she smiles, and Murphy wonders if maybe being blinded by faith isn’t such a bad way to live life. 

After all, Daniel was supportive of the adjustment protocol. Maybe he, too, had problems with free will. 

* * *

Murphy knows he’s adaptable. He does - it’s how he survived for so long when the entire world was against him. It’s how he earned the moniker  _ cockroach,  _ even if his stomach rolls anytime someone calls him that. He didn’t want to be. He’s never wanted to be one. Maybe he’s a survivor, sure, but what other choice is there?

He finds it funny, when he’s all by himself, that the others have turned his ability to survive against stacked odds into something twisted, something deceitful, something horrible like a bug that’s more annoying than it is useful. He finds it funny, but he never laughs. 

Murphy knows he’s adaptable, yet lately, Emori seems to be adapting leagues faster than he ever could. 

“Have you read the journals?” she asks. Even when she’s strapped up to a machine that’s cycling radiation out of her blood, her mind is working quickly and craftily, doing her best to keep their upper hand. 

Still, he has to look at the floor for a second. “No.”

“John!” she hisses, clearly annoyed. It’s fair - she’s got a right to be, surely. She’d read Kaylee’s journals front to back during their first night in the castle, and she’d done her best to learn all aspects of Kaylee’s life so she could keep up the ruse for as long as she could. As soon as she’d finished, she’d passed them off to Murphy, who had left them untouched on a table where he doesn’t have to look at them. 

“Yeah,” is all he says. “I’ll get around to it. I will.” It’s hard, lying to her when she’s still sick from radiation it only took him a couple hours to recover from. 

She shakes her head, sighing through gritted teeth. “At least spend some time with Daniel’s most devout followers.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“Yes,” she says, like it’s obvious, and maybe it should have been. She hasn’t been subtle about spending days in the temple, dressed to the nines in Kaylee’s finest dresses, doing her best to assume the role of a woman she’d never even met. 

“Right,” he sighs. “Fine, I’ll let them worship me while I’m in the room for an hour or two. How hard could it be?”

Her eyes soften, then, like she knows something he hasn’t even admitted to himself. “At least,” she says, slowly, “spend some time with Zev.”

Murphy knows exactly who she’s talking about as the shame fills his heart. “Zev?”

“He was his partner,” she says. “He  _ already _ doesn’t believe that you’re Daniel. You know that he could spread dissent, so - convince him.”

“Convince him?” he repeats, incredulous. “ _ Convince _ him that I’m actually his dead lover?”

Emori’s eyes are hard. “I never said it would be easy.”

“No,” he says, chuckling dryly. “No, you never did.” 

Once again, he’s only got himself to blame. 

* * *

The true believers threaten to burn themselves, one by one, until they release Russell. The girl that was working behind the bar, serving him not too long ago, is the first to sacrifice herself. When Murphy hears the news, all he can hope is that she hadn’t had too hard of a time picking up the glass pieces. 

So - Murphy tries to save everyone. He does his absolute best, but then children get involved and all he can think about is his own father, willing to throw everything away to give his son a second chance, and the entire plan that Murphy’s concocted goes out the window. 

He saves the children, but then he has to be saved himself. Once again, Emori’s got a chance to wear a dress and Kaylee becomes the hero of the day. He tries not to look her in the eye for too long as he marches out by her side, buttoning up his shirt and trying to ignore the stench of gasoline that’s been slathered into his skin. 

“What happened?” Emori hisses once they’re out of earshot of anyone in the temple. “What went wrong?”

“They asked me a question,” he replies, trying to make it sound nonchalant. “I didn’t know the answer.”

She nods, and he hopes that it will stop here, but of course, it doesn’t. “What was the question?” she asks. “I’ll try and find the answer so we know, for next time.”

_ For next time.  _ She says it so easily, as if this time wasn’t hard enough for her. “The four pillars of Sanctum,” he says. 

She stumbles, for a second, and though he catches and steadies her he still feels like he’s done something wrong. “Repent, renew, rejoice, rebirth,” she says, the answer rolling right off her tongue once she’s got her bearings. 

“Yeah, well, I know that  _ now.”  _

“If you had just read the journals-”

“I get it,” he says, cutting her off. Her eyes narrow, for a second, but she doesn’t press the issue further. 

They make it back to medical. Emori sits down, ready to finish her recovery now that she’s done the impossible and saved the day once more. He knows he should stay, and talk it over, but instead he turns and immediately leaves, hoping that Raven, Clarke, or  _ somebody _ has gotten back by now and he won’t feel so horribly, soul-crushingly alone. 

* * *

A day later, and still, nobody has shown up. 

Murphy wanders to the machine shop, first, but it’s clearly been empty for a little while now. Clarke and Gaia, who had been spending so much time by the farmhouse and on Sanctum’s grounds, are nowhere to be seen. Bellamy is still considered missing. They’re gone, somewhere, and they all might be dead by now, and none of them even thought to say goodbye. 

He resists the urge to go back to the bar, instead, finding himself back in he and Emori’s room. She’s still inside, putting on a fancy dress and doing her hair up in a fancy style. “Going out?” he says, lightly, doing his best to joke. 

“Some of us,” she replies, “have a job to do.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. His gaze lands on the pile of journals in the corner. It would be easy, he knows, to pick them up and read them for the rest of the day, no matter how long it takes him. That would be enough to convince Emori that he cares about this, too, and that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep the peace in Sanctum. Yet - he doesn’t move. 

She puts a pin into her hair as a finishing touch and then turns, her eyes soft and sad. “Listen, John,” she says, “I’ve been...thinking.”

It feels like they’re back on the Ring. He knows exactly where this is going. “Yeah?”

“Daniel and Kaylee were siblings,” she says, “and - maybe we should be, too.”

He could joke. He could cry. He could beg her for one more chance, but, truthfully? He doesn’t want one. “Sure.”

Her brow raises. “Sure?”

“Yeah,” he says, “sure.” With that, he takes his leave, putting as much distance between himself and the room as he can. 

* * *

Somehow, he finds himself in the forest. 

His plan was, and still is, to make his way to Gabriel’s tent, the last place he knew his friends had been. Yet, as he gets closer to his goal, he begins to realize that he hasn’t really thought this plan through. For one, he doesn’t have a gun, or any weapon at all. Furthermore, he hasn’t told anyone he was leaving, once again forcing Emori to cover for him. 

She’ll be fine, though, he convinces himself. She’s adaptable. 

Still, Murphy continues onwards, still. There’s no reasoning behind his march, or his desire to join his so-called friends, but he most definitely doesn’t want to be Daniel for another day if he can help it. Already, though he’s tried to remember them, he can’t name the four pillars of Sanctum. 

When he makes it to Gabriel’s old home, he’s met with a field of bodies. 

There’s eight that he can count, littered all around him, each of them wearing some kind of suit. Helmets are blocking his view of their faces, and for that, he’s grateful - the gaze of a corpse is one he’s seen far too many times. Carefully, he works his way through the graveyard, keeping an ear open for any sounds or movement, yet he hears nothing around him at all. 

He makes through a fence he doesn’t remember as having been there, then into the old tent. Still, it’s empty. Murphy doesn’t have a way of fighting back against anyone who might attack, but he begins to hope that someone would jump out of the shadows anyways, just so that he doesn’t have to dwell on this horrible stillness any longer. 

And then, the walls around him burn with a green light. 

It doesn’t make sense, and he should run from it, but he stays still, jaw dropping as a bright green light shines through every crack of the tent. Murphy looks all around him, but he can’t tell where the source is, and he isn’t sure what he’s done to set it off. He shields his eyes, the light getting so bright that he can’t see through it. 

Then - then it’s gone. 

Murphy blinks, his eyes taking a second to adjust to the change in surroundings. As soon as they do, he takes a step back. 

Bellamy Blake is standing in front of him. 

“What the hell?” Murphy whispers, stumbling back a few steps as he stares at the figure that has seemingly appeared out of thin air. The longer he stares, the less doubt there is - it’s definitely Bellamy, though  _ how _ this is possible, or where exactly he just came from, remains a mystery. 

Bellamy, too, seems confused. His hair and eyes are wild, and he’s holding a knife in his left hand. He spins, shaking, until his gaze lands on Murphy and he immediately freezes. “Murphy? What are you doing here?”

“Yeah,” Murphy says, slowly, “I think I could ask you the same question.”

“I - I don’t-” Bellamy starts, and then he stops, unsure of what to say. “I don’t know.”

“Well - where were you? Where did you come from?”

Still, Bellamy can’t come up with an answer. “I don’t remember,” he says. “I was - Octavia was gone, but then - I don’t know.”

He has yet to put down the knife, his grip so tight that his fingers are turning pale. Murphy thinks he might have been better off staying in Sanctum. 

* * *

They burn the bodies. 

As they put them in a pile and light a flame, Bellamy tells Murphy what he knows, which isn’t much. A woman came out of the anomaly, stabbed Octavia, and then his sister disappeared. Something he couldn’t see knocked him out, and the next thing he knows, he was back in Gabriel’s tent. 

“Clarke went after you,” Murphy tells him. They’re standing, side by side, watching the fire burn away the corpses they couldn’t identify. He knows they weren’t from Sanctum, but that leaves them with more questions than answers. 

“She did?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Raven, Miller, Niylah, Jordan, and Gaia, too.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn’t?” 

A reflection of the flame dances in Murphy’s eyes. “No.”

“Oh.”

In that moment, he feels a sense of desperation he hasn’t felt in a long time, and even if he were asked, he wouldn’t be able to explain why. “I would have,” he says, very quickly. “But - they didn’t tell me they were going.”

Bellamy’s quiet, for a moment. “They didn’t?”

“No,” he says. “I guess rescuing you was more important than anyone they left behind.”

“I guess I should feel honoured.”

“Yeah, well,” Murphy says, refusing to look at him even though he knows Bellamy’s eyes are drilling holes into the side of his head, “essential personnel, and all that.”

Bellamy laughs, a sound one would never expect to hear at the same time as a funeral pyre. “I don’t know about that,” he says. “You’re ruling Sanctum, aren’t you? I’d call that pretty essential.”

“Emori’s doing most of the work there.”

There’s a pause. “Is that what you want?”

Murphy isn’t sure what to say. Nobody has ever asked him. “I don’t know.”

Bellamy hums. “What do you want, then?”

“I know what I don’t want,” Murphy says. “I don’t want to be a king.”

“Then don’t,” he replies, and for a hauntingly perfect second, with Bellamy at his side, it really does feel that easy. 

* * *

Murphy spends time with Zev. At least - he tries. 

“I don’t know what you expected by coming here,” Zev says, as soon as he opens the temple door. Truthfully, Murphy doesn’t know how the man keeps dressing in his “true believer” robes, or why he keeps coming to the temple when he knows more than anyone that the Primes are all liars. 

And - Murphy should embrace him. He should kiss him. He should swear his loyalty, his devotion, and apologize for taking so long to come back to him. He should give Zev just a piece of happiness, just for a second, because it’s the nice thing to do - but he can’t, because the other man doesn’t want these things. 

Zev wants his partner back, but Murphy stole that from him. 

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he says, and though he knows it will never be enough, he means it, and it puts a part of his soul to rest. 

Zev studies him carefully, then he nods, stiffly. “I think that you really mean that.”

“I do.”

With another nod and a tap of his fingers against the door, Zev holds it open further, allowing Murphy to enter. He smiles his thanks, and then he does so, and though he does not enjoy the way he’s greeted by all the believers in the temple, he stays to talk to them and he does his job. 

* * *

He hasn’t spoken to Emori since she’d called things off. Still, as night descends upon Sanctum and both the suns grow quiet, he knows he should go back to their room. He should at least talk to her, and try to settle things however which way they go, and both of them could rest easy. Yet - she’s already resting easy. It’s not hard for him to figure that much out. 

That night, Murphy goes to Bellamy’s room. 

He’s been set up in a small visitor room near the remnants of the castle. It isn’t much, but he knows that he isn’t planning on staying long - as soon as morning hits, Bellamy will be back out there, searching for their friends, for his sister, and doing his best to understand the ways of the mysterious green light and where all the bodies had been. 

Murphy should let him rest. He knows this, but he knocks on his door anyways. 

It doesn’t take long for Bellamy to open it. “Hi,” he says, letting Murphy inside without protest. “I was waiting for you to come by.”

“You were?” Murphy feels awkward, though he doesn’t know why. He shoves his hands into his pockets, not sure of what to do with them. 

Bellamy just smiles. “What, you mean the Primes  _ don’t _ make house calls?”

He means it as a joke, but Murphy doesn’t laugh. “Right - sorry.”

“Relax, Murphy,” Bellamy says. With great effort, Murphy pulls his hands out of his pocket, and slowly sits on the edge of the bed in the room. There isn’t much else inside in the name of furniture save for the bed and one candle giving the room light, but neither of them mind. 

There’s a lot he wants to say, as they sit in silence together on the bed. There’s a lot he can’t say, even if he wants to, and there’s a lot he shouldn’t say. Yet, as he goes over the options in his mind, he ends up settling on, “Do you really have to leave tomorrow?”

He can’t quite see Bellamy’s expression in the dim light, but he knows him well enough to recognize it’s mournful. “Octavia’s in trouble,” he says, “and not to mention, if Clarke and the others have gone after me, then I have to help them, too.”

“What about Echo?”

A pause. “What about her?”

“You mentioned Octavia, and Clarke, and everyone who went with her. But not Echo.”

Bellamy sighs. The bed creaks slightly as he leans back. “Echo will be fine,” he decides. “But - I - well, you know-”

“I do,” Murphy says, and for once, he does. “I understand.”

He thinks, though he can’t tell for sure, that Bellamy’s grateful he cut him off. “So yes,” he finishes, “I do have to go. But Murphy - we talked before, but you never gave me an answer. What do  _ you _ want?”

Murphy’s tired. He wants to rest, but he also wants to run through the woods and never look back, finally shaking off the chains that have held him so tightly for years. He wants to be alone, and never have any responsibilities to deal with ever again, but he also wants to live somewhere surrounded by those he loves, because honestly he doesn’t know  _ how _ to be alone. He wants to learn everything he doesn’t know how to do, but he also wants to feel content in the skin that he has. 

“I’m tired,” he says, repeating shallow words that he said the night he’d tried and failed to save the true believers, “of being the hero all the time.”

“Are you?”

“No,” he admits, “but I’m tired of being  _ expected _ to be.”

Bellamy, somehow, seems to understand. “Then - don’t be the hero anymore.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?”

And Murphy, well, he doesn’t know how to take that. “It never has been, before.”

Bellamy sighs. “Pretend you can have anything, Murphy,” he says. “Don’t think about the consequences. Just - what do you want?”

He knows. He does. 

He wants to be embraced. He wants to feel love, in a safe, secure way. He wants everyone who has left him behind to come back and say that they’re sorry for doing so, and that they’re here now, and they’ll never leave, not again. “I want you,” he says. 

The candle flickers against the darkness, a silhouette of the flame reflecting in Bellamy’s eye. “Come here.”

Murphy’s laying next to him before he knows it, finding a piece of the solace he so desperately craves when Bellamy holds his arm around his shoulder. He feels warm. He feels tethered to the earth, but also set free in the most glorious of ways. Bellamy’s heart beats below him, his chest rises and falls, and Murphy has never known such a beautiful kind of clarity. 

“I don’t want to be king anymore,” Murphy whispers. “I never did.”

He thinks that he can feel Bellamy smile. “Then don’t be one,” he says. “You’ve got a choice in this, Murphy. I know you don’t think you do, but - you can do what you want, you know? You can.”

Murphy sighs, deeply. Daniel may have done his best to control and temper free will, but he thinks he understands now that that was a mistake. No journal could have taught him that. 

Sanctum has always been a glorified prison, to both its rulers and its citizens. Murphy’s been locked in enough chains for a lifetime, he thinks, and really, he should have recognized this sooner. “I want to be free,” he says. 

Bellamy doesn’t even hesitate. “What does that look like for you, Murphy?”

“I want,” he whispers, “to go with you, tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Bellamy hums, the sound resonating deeply in his chest, filling Murphy’s heart with the vibrations. “Yeah. Okay.”

Softly, Bellamy blows the candle out, and the room is pitched into darkness. 

Murphy closes his eyes, letting the sound of Bellamy’s heart lull him to sleep. Tomorrow, they will find their friends, and they will save the day, as they always do - but this time, they will do it together. Tomorrow, they will have enough problems to deal with for a lifetime, but in this moment Murphy feels safe, he feels secure, and he wants for nothing that he doesn’t already have. 

Murphy’s learning that for now, this is and can be enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> i know that kind of skimped over canon but as i said...i have no idea what's going on. i just miss murphamy. 
> 
> hope this was alright! it isn't beta'd. i wrote it in about 3 hours and threw it up because i really wanted to write this for some reason. i'm not sure what it studies or reveals, but hopefully you like it anyways. if you are interested in more, bigger (and better, hopefully) content, i have a current wip called "toward eternity" going on right now that's at 13/17 chapters! so that's exciting. 
> 
> i'm on twitter as always @reidsnora. thanks again :)


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